


it's so hard, my love, to say it to you out loud

by entropic_flight (fulmentus)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Post-Season/Series 04 Finale, alex and co. are mentioned, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18914167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulmentus/pseuds/entropic_flight
Summary: Lena watches as every friendship, every relationship she’s forged with people she thought she could trust — people who she thought trustedher— crack and fall away.





	it's so hard, my love, to say it to you out loud

****Lena watches the cracks web across the glass, across the picture. She watches, watches, watches, almost unseeingly(she doesn’t want to watch, doesn’t want to watch what she thought was the truth for so long — _for so long_ — shatter into pieces before her).

(Too late, too late, too late.)

She closes her eyes, exhales slowly, steadily, shakes off the dredges of anger that burn hot, so hot, beneath her sternum, building in her chest. Opens her eyes again to eye the lines in the glass.

It echoes, the shatter — the gunshots. One, two. Setting the drink down, hard.

It rings loud in her ears, the only things filling them.

( _One, two._ Lex falls backward, chuckling lowly. He smiles up at her, grins that menacing smile of his like he knows so much more than she ever will — he _does_ know more — _did_ know more.

She watches the videos stretch out before her:

Kara catching bullets with her bare hands. Kara sneezing out a breath that pushes people backward. Kara shooting lasers from her eyes like Supergirl, burning pictures of herself and Alex, and oh, _Lena_ from the room in Kasnia.

Kara is Supergirl, Kara is Supergirl, _Kara is Supergirl_.)

It echoes in the vacuum of her mind, and Lena watches as every friendship, every relationship she’s forged with people she thought she could trust — people who she thought trusted _her_ — crack and fall away.

* * *

Lena refuses invitations to game nights now, citing that work is keeping her occupied for hours at a time (she isn’t necessarily lying).

She doesn’t trust herself. Doesn’t trust herself not to say anything pointed, anything scathing. Doesn’t trust herself to look everyone in the eye and paste a smile on her face and pretend that everything is fine. That nothing has changed. That something fundamental has shifted beneath her feet and has left her so unmoored, so angry, so—

(She can’t think of Kara; Kara and her gentle, kind smiles without seeing Supergirl’s laser vision scorching fire across the walls in Kasnia.

Can’t think of Kara without bile rising in her throat. Can’t think of Kara without the keen sting of betrayal stabbing into her heart.)

So she swallows everything down, shuffles them away into the back of her mind. Buries them beneath years and years of masks she’s built since she was a child. Because that’s what Luthors are good at: hiding everything away behind a sharp smile.

She knows she can’t evade them forever, knows that it’ll only be a matter of time before Alex breaks the tension between them when they work side-by-side in the DEO labs, before James places a concerned hand on her shoulder and asks _what’s going on?_ , only a matter of time before Brainy catches on.

But all Lena knows is gunshots and blood spray and the shattering of glass, and oh, she thought she was used to being alone.

* * *

She closes her eyes and sees Lex. Lex and his sneer, Lex and his encouraging smiles from before — before everything with Kryptonians and Supers drew him away.

She dreams of him dying, lying on the floor by her hand. She dreams of him alive and well and showing her around the labs, his hand guiding her projects until she no longer needs his help. She dreams and dreams and dreams, vivid juxtapositions of her brother she thought she knew. The brother she thought cared about her.

(When she isn’t dreaming of Lex, she’s dreaming of Kara.

Kara and her pastel cardigans and nervous smiles. Kara and her warm, strong arms around Lena’s shoulders, holding her close, tethering her to the world. Kara and her brightness and integrity and how she _loves_ with everything she is.

Kara, who is actually Supergirl and has been _lying_ to Lena for years.

Has been hiding behind fidgety mannerisms and absent-mindedness. Has been hiding the cape and the strength.)

She dreams in contradictions, and Lena never fails to wake up exhausted and confused and numb.

When she lost Lex to his madness years ago, Lena thought that was when the world stopped and she was destined to walk this world alone without him. Because Lex was everything to her back then — the only person who ever cared about her, _knew_ her.

But now she’s lost Kara. Kara, the person who showed Lena what it really meant to love. Kara, who has always — or so Lena thought — been honest and _real_. Kara, who unconditionally supported Lena at every turn.

Lena doesn’t understand how losing Kara could hurt more than losing Lex, but oh, it _does_. It does.

* * *

She wants to tell Kara she knows she’s Supergirl. And she almost does, multiple times, on the days when she can’t ignore their invitations to get together without one of them storming into her office and dragging her away from paperwork.

She would meet Kara’s eyes across the room or sit beside her with a pit in her stomach that rolled over itself, eating her alive, and she would nearly say it — the words at the tip of her tongue.

But Kara would smile, laugh, and Lena’s resolve would melt away, mix with the current of resentment that rushes through her.

She doesn’t tell Kara.

* * *

Two gunshots. One, two. No hesitation.

Lena stares down the barrel at Lex, feels her lower lip tremble just a little bit. Because this is her _brother_. Her brother, who was the first to show her kindness, looking up at her with such pity and contempt.

The shattering of glass, the images of Kara and Alex lost to fractures.

 _You’re left with no one. And nothing_.

Lena laughs, something broken and ragged around the edges, leans heavily against her desk.

Lex was right.

(Two gunshots, glass shatters under her decanter.

Lena breathes in, every inhale feeling like she’s swallowing the glass shards she created.)

* * *

Kara gets passed Jess once. Exactly once.

She breezes in with Jess on her heels, an expression of mingled sympathy and contrition. Lena shoots her a look, eyebrow arched, and Jess never lets Kara in without Lena’s explicit permission afterward.

(Lena doesn’t give it for a long time.)

But Kara stands before her, shoulders hunched slightly forward, hands twisting and twisting and twisting together. Lena doesn’t know what to think of it, Kara curling in on herself beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of Lena’s office.

“Are you…” Kara starts, stumbling over her words already. And it used to be endearing — everything about her used to be endearing — but Lena can’t think past the lump of bitterness in her throat. “Did I do something?”

 _You lied to me for years_ , Lena wants to say. “What do you mean?” She says instead, her hands pressing into the underside of her desk, nails scraping into varnish.

“You haven’t…” Kara sighs, brings a hand up to fiddle with the arm of her glasses. She looks sad. Sad and small in front of Lena, and Lena’s breath catches in her throat, tightens with pain. She hates seeing Kara like this — forlorn and folding into herself — because Kara has always been so strong, so bright. But oh, she’s so small now. “You’ve been avoiding us.”

Lena opens her mouth, but Kara continues, ”You _have_ , Lena. And I don’t know if it’s something we’ve done, or if it’s something _I’ve_ done.”

Something flickers in the blues of her eyes, something that resembles _guilt_ , and oh, Lena furrows her brow, feels her chest constrict. Kara’s eyes look like broken glass, fragile shards of blue, blue, blue.

(Gunshots, Lex falling, the picture of her and Kara and Alex smiling together in pieces.)

Lena gets up, crosses the room toward Kara almost in a daze. She stops, places a hand on Kara’s chest — right on top of where the crest would be, that brilliant, resplendent _S_ — and she feels Kara take a breath beneath her palm. Feels the rise and fall.

“You know.” It’s said in such a defeated, _weary_ tone, almost as though this is exactly what Kara expected.

Lena’s eyes flit upward, flick between Kara’s (the shattered, vulnerable blue). “Lex told me.”

She pulls her hand back, steps away from Kara because the familiar rush of heat, of betrayal, burns through her veins once more.

“Lena, I’m so sorry,” Kara rushes out, brows creasing and lips trembling, her voice edging on tearful, and oh, Lena hates that sound too. The sound of Kara on the verge of tears. “I meant to tell you once everything with Lex was over. I’ve always hated having to lie to you.”

 _Your friends have been lying to you from the start_.

“I meant to tell you earlier, on the plane back from Kasnia. I was going to tell you, but…” Kara trails off, glances away, her face twisted in pain.

 _They mocked you. Humiliated you. Betrayed you. Every last one_.

Lena sucks in a breath. Her heart beats and beats, rapid pulses in her chest. “I think you should go, Kara.” It comes out firmer, steadier than Lena anticipated, and she makes certain to straighten her shoulders, to fix Kara with a hard look.

(It almost wavers, almost comes falling down when Kara meets her eyes, fragile and resigned and _devastated_.)

She casts one last glance in Lena’s direction before she leaves, posture slumped. Lena watches her go (she’s been watching a lot of things lately), expelling a breath once Kara is out of sight. She runs a hand through her hair, fights back an angry sob that forms in her throat.

She’s a Luthor. She is always meant to push everyone away. To be alone.

* * *

Alex confronts her about it.

She tells her every reason they had for not revealing that Kara was Supergirl. How Lena seemed so distrustful of aliens at first — building the alien detection device for profit, to keep L-Corp from sinking entirely. Every small comment Lena has made throughout the years.

And the worst part is that it makes _sense_. Lena has no rebuttal for them because oh, she was distrustful of them at first. _At first_. Now she sees them and realizes that they’re just trying to survive like everyone else.

(She had so many arguments with Lex about his view on aliens, and none of them were around to hear it.)

Maybe Alex sees the way her face twists, the way everything she’s ever said and done registers on her face because Alex’s eyes soften. She doesn’t pursue the topic, doesn’t push Lena, and Lena nearly thanks her for it.

(Later, when Lena sits in her apartment, knees drawn to her chest, she feels the anger and betrayal ebb away, fade to a distant echo in her chest.

In its place comes a numb, hollowed out kind of pain. Because oh, even though she understands Kara’s reasons — all of their reasons — it still hurts.)

* * *

It takes weeks, weeks that stretch into months, before Lena’s ready to see Kara again.

(She catches glimpses of red and blue from her office balcony, and Lena knows if she called, Kara would come. Because Kara has always, _always_ , been devoted to people. Even Lena.)

She picks up her phone, flipping it over and over in her grasp before she types in her password. She hovers over Kara’s name in the text window, notices how their last conversation was from months ago. A sharp pang throbs in her chest.

Lena gnaws on her bottom lip, uncertain. Stares and stares and stares at Kara’s name.

( _Gunshots, Lex falling, the picture of her and Kara and Alex smiling in pieces_.)

She types out a message.

> _Can we talk?_

Kara’s response comes instantly.

> _Of course._

_I’ve missed you_ , Lena almost types. Because she has, oh god, she has. But it’s been overshadowed by hurt for so long that she didn’t recognize what it was until now. Admissions have never sat well with her, but oh, with Kara…

With Kara, she’s willing to try. She’s always willing to try for Kara.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!  
> title from: no light, no light by florence and the machine
> 
> fulmentus.tumblr.com


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